The planned increase in capacity at the plant will largely happen via the ongoing revamp and upgrade capacity of Blast Furnace-3, and the modification and expansion of its Steel Melting Shop and the flat and long products mills to utilize additional hot metal produced from Blast Furnace-3.

The company will also set-up a 1.5MTPA coke oven plant at Vijayanagar to bridge the current and expected gaps in coke availability and is likely to be commissioned by March 2020, it added.

Vinod Nowal, Deputy Managing Director – JSW Steel Ltd said the increased capacity at the JSW Vijayanagar Works will support growth and improve efficiency of the company as a whole.

It also said it has commenced operations at two iron ore mines (Tunga & Nandi Mines) in Karnataka for which it has already received statutory clearances.

The cumulative capacity of these two iron ore mines is 0.71 MTPA.

For the remaining three mines, JSW Steel expects statutory clearances and approvals during the current fiscal, it added.

The annual production capacity of the five mines acquired by JSW Steel, through 2017 auction, is approximately 4.66 MTPA.

“Once all five mines are operational, they are expected to fulfil approximately 20% of the Iron Ore requirement of JSW Vijayanagar Works steel manufacturing unit, it said.

The five mines are located within 20 to 35 Km from the Vijayanagar factory.

The company will also increase the share of value added & special steel products (VASP) in its output by expanding the capacity of Cold Rolling Mill 1 complex at Vijayanagar works from 0.8 MTPA to 1 MTPA as well as setting up a 0.3MTPA colour coated line.

The company has already installed a new state-of-the-art cold rolling mill (CRM-2) at Vijayanagar Works that caters to sectors such as automobile.

“The CRM-2 unit at Vijayanagar Works produces Ultra High Strength steel viz. DP 780, 980, etc, which are supplied commercially to car makers in India. These are High Strength grades of steel which facilitate light weighting of a Car.

“JSW Steel is the only steel manufacturer in India capable of supplying this product grade. These automotive grade steel products were earlier largely imported by the automobile companies in India but are now being procured domestically from JSW Steel,” it said.